


Children of the Dusk

by LauraEMoriarty



Series: His Glowing Hands [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Rose Shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraEMoriarty/pseuds/LauraEMoriarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble about the impact of Rose Shepard's choices on her children and grandchildren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the Dusk

Ella Alenko stood watching her father with her hands on her hips as he moved from the easy chair to the kitchen. In the five years since they had lain her mother to rest, Ella noticed her father diminishing under the weight of his grief. It wouldn’t be long now.  He looked old, for the first time, as though she had never seen him look so old before.

 

“Here Dad,” she gently took the mug from his frail hands, “Let me.” Ella put the mug down on the draining board, reached into the cupboard for the box of tea, and organised her father’s cuppa. She watched her small son toddle over to her father, and tug at the leg of his pants.

 

“Up, Pa?” he said, and Ella watched as Kaidan picked up his grandson.

 

Ella had grown up with the stories of her parents heroics, and she had loved those stories. They were of danger and love, of eternal and infernal choices made that even sixty years later, they were still being told. Ella knew she was the descendant of strong  women, extraordinary women, who had such an impact on the galaxy. Being the eldest daughter of the first two human Spectres was something of a burden and a source of pride. They had expected so much from her, but she was not her mother.

 

It was hard living up to the expectations that everyone had for her. They had expected her to follow her illustrious parents footsteps, enlist in the Alliance Marine Corps, work her way up through to N7, and everything else they had done.

 

But that wasn’t the life for Ella.

 

She was brilliant, but she had chosen a different life for herself. A life without gunfire and post-traumatic stress disorder. A life that was gentler, softer. A life where she would never have to fire a gun, or use her biotics to throw an enemy across a battlefield littered with corpses. A life where people didn’t do a double-take when they recognised her mother, and expected brilliance from her.

 

Ella had chosen a life where softness was encouraged, a life spent not in battle against Reapers and Husks and god only knew what else. She had rejected the life her parents had led for themselves, and substituted in its place a life that had soft blows. She had become a nursery school teacher, delighting in teaching children to read and write. She kept her surname quiet, hating the expectation that came with such a renowned surname such as hers. Ella went by her aunt Nellie’s surname, aware that it came with less expectations.

 

She bustled around the kitchen, taking things out of cupboards, plating up two cookies and her father’s cup of tea.

 

“I miss her, Dad,” she said, settling down on the couch next to him after she deposited the tray of tea and cookies on the large coffee table. “She may not have always agreed with my choice of career, but I miss her. It’s really hard this year because of Atticus.” Ella had named her son after her great grandfather.

 

Mother’s Day was always hardest. This had been the first year Ella hadn’t had visited her mother’s memorial and laid a wreath in memory. There were always too many people there, too many tourists gawking at her mother’s tomb as though it was some kind of tourist attraction. Ella wished she had overruled the Council on the issue, wished that her father had said _something_.

 

“I miss her too, Ella,’ Kaidan replied, bouncing Atticus on his knee.

 

Ella loved watching her father’s gentleness with children. It was one of the things she loved about him, and his pride in his children and grandchildren. “She should be buried on Earth, not on the Citadel,” Ella said softly. “I couldn’t visit her tomb this year. The tourists had crowded around it, taking photos and smiling as though it was some sort of bizarre and cheerful thing to do. They don’t care that she’s my mum.” Ella’s eyes filled with tears.

 

“They only give a damn that she saved the galaxy.”

 

“It’s the way of things, Ellabub,” Kaidan said softly, “Your mother saved my life plenty of times, and did some truly remarkable things.”

 

“Yeah, I know all that, dad. But it still feels so much like a betrayal of who she was. They don’t care that there’s more to her than just being the first Human Spectre, the Hero of the Citadel, Conqueror of the Collectors, Reaper War Hero. They don’t know that she loved _Anne of Green Gables_ , that her favourite colour was steel blue. They don’t know Mum like we knew her.”

That, Ella thought, was the worst of it.

 

But when she tucked Atticus in his cot that night, and turned on the floating mobile that Liara T’Soni had given her when Atticus was born, Ella realised that without her mother, the galaxy would’ve been destroyed. She watched as her small son clutched his Garrus Vakarian teddy, and stuck his thumb in his mouth.

 

Without her mother, her precious son wouldn’t have happened.

 

Ella turned from the room where Atticus slept peacefully, and slipped quietly along the corridor to her parent’s bedroom. Her father had gone to bed.

 

In the darkness, without turning on the light, Ella knew instinctively that Kaidan had slipped away, slipped up into the arms of his loving wife, and been reunited with her one final time.


End file.
